Cyprus: Snorkeling in the Blue Lagoon

We had been on a road trip through Cyprus making our way up the western coastline.

We took our time along the way to stop at some of the historical sites that Cyprus has to offer. Cyprus has a long history of varied settlers that predate ancient Egypt, but it was the Romans that left some of the most impressive ruins that can still be found in Cyprus.

The first stop of our road trip started off in Paphos where a good portion of the archeological sites on the island can be found.

We visited the Tomb of the Kings, Paphos Castle, and an archeological park. Making our way up the coast we stopped again in Peyia to visit the Sea Caves. They were beautiful and the water was crystal clear. As incredible as it was, we knew that we had saved the best for last.

Neo Chorio has some of the most pristine waters that can be found in Cyprus.

“Those fools! Can you believe that they were stupid enough to give us a boat that goes this fast?” I asked incredulously. “They even packed us lunch!” “I know, right?” Mimi replied having trouble believing it herself. “Let’s see how fast it goes.”

I shoved the throttle to the “full speed ahead” position and we took off along the Cyprus coastline.

The wind blew through our hair as smiles lit up our faces from the pure joy of the speed. The boat leaped from wave to wave as the shoreline passed by our left side. To our right was nothing but ocean and we decided to head towards that horizon, far enough so that the people from the hotel, that had just rented us the boat, couldn’t realize their mistake.

We had just raced through a safety briefing in which we had spent all our time reassuring the instructor at, Latchi Watersports Centre, that we most assuredly knew what we were doing.

It was all true of course. I had grown up fishing with my Dad every chance we could, which was quite a lot. Mimi’s Dad’s had a speed boat that was much faster than the smaller fishing boats that I was used to. We were no strangers to boats. So, this was going to be fun.

We were staying at the Anassa Hotel, which was well beyond our usual budget and worth every penny.

It is one of the best hotels we’ve ever stayed at and we’ve stayed at a lot of hotels. Located on the outskirts of the Akamas Peninsula National Park, it was the home of great snorkeling spots with names like Venus Bath, Baths of Aphrodite, and the Blue Lagoon. After seeing what this boat could do, we planned on heading to those spots as part of a full day of snorkeling.

Finally satisfying our need for speed, we headed to the first snorkeling spot.

The water was crystal clear and incredibly blue. With the great visibility these waters offered, we knew it was going to be a good day of snorkeling. The hotel had given us a map and had shown us pictures of certain landmarks to look out for. It would help identify each cove, bay, and colorfully named snorkeling spot that we could ever hope to swim in. We promptly tucked the map underneath something to keep it from blowing away. Then we proceeded to ignore it for most of the day. Playing it by ear, we just dropped anchor wherever looked good to us.

Mimi and I snorkeled for hours before we decided to check out the lunch that the hotel had packed for us.

Anchoring in a particularly beautiful spot, we enjoyed the rocking of the waves as we sorted through what turned out to be a gourmet feast. It was a truly impressive lunch of spring rolls, salads, wraps, hummus, cheeses, fruits, bread, and snacks. It was more than we could easily finish, and we only ate about half of it before we were ready to get back into the water. That whole waiting an hour after eating thing is an old wives’ tale. We were only going to wait as long as it took us to drive to the next spot before jumping back into those clear blue waters.   

The Blue Lagoon was listed on the map, so we decided that would make a good spot to resume our day of snorkeling.

It turned out to be the most beautiful spot by far. We had thought the water was impressive before, but the Blue Lagoon was well deserving of the name. The turquoise waters looked so inviting that we barely waited to drop anchor before we were diving into the water.

We swam there for well over an hour before we noticed it was starting to get a little crowded.

Other boats had started to pull up with the same idea as us. People were dropping into the water like frat boys at an open bar. We hung out for a while longer until a much larger boat full of tourists pulled up. That’s when we knew it was time to move on up the coast. There were other beautiful spots that we had seen along our drive. We spent a couple of more hours snorkeling and tried out a few other spots.

As amazing as they were, nothing matched the beauty of the Blue Lagoon.

We had no complaints though, it had all been incredible. Having spent the whole day swimming and we were getting pretty tired at that point. We ate the rest of our lunch on the boat just to enjoy the feeling of the waves for a little while longer. It seemed like a good idea to head back to the hotel and retire to the hotel beach. Mainly because Anassa has one of the nicest beaches we had seen in all of Cyprus. It also had one outstanding feature that elevated it beyond all of the others; full bar service.     

It was the perfect end to a beautiful day.

We sat on the beach sipping our drinks as we watched the sunset. Some days are just better than others. We were very thankful for the opportunity we had to experience this particular day. It’s a memory that will always bring a smile to our faces.